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ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 






ON THE 



PENTATEUCH: 

A comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument,- 
proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true ; and that it 
was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in 
the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C, and the latest 
in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C. 



TO WHICH IS APPENDED AN ESSAY ON 



THE NATION and COUNTKY of the JEWS. 



" They do the greatest injury to religion who endeavor to establish it upon a false basis.' 






gw f0*fe: 

SOLD BY THE 

AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY. 

1871 



Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1871, by Wm. Henry Burr, in the office 
of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



r 
* ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 



ON THE 

PENTATEUCH: 

A Comprehensive Summary of Bishop Colenso's Argu- 
ment, Proving that the Pentateuch is not Histori- 
cally True; and that it was composed by several 
writers, the earliest of "whom lived in the time of 
Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C, and the latest in thh 
time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. G. 



PREFACE. 



The author of the book of which this pamphlet is an ab- 
stract is not an Infidel, but a Bishop of the Church of England, 
having charge of the Diocese of Natal, in South Africa. While 
engaged in the translation of the Scriptures into the Zulu tongue, 
with the aid of intelligent natives, he was brought face to faco 
with questions which in former days had caused him some uneasi- 
ness, but with respect to which he had been enabled to satisfy his 
mind sufficiently for practical purposes, as a Christian minister, 
by means of the specious explanations given in most commenta- 
ries on the Bible, and had settled down into a willing acquies- 
cence in the general truth of the narrative of the Old Testament, 
whatever difficulties might still hang about particular parts of it. 



ii PREFACE. 

But while translating the story of the Flood, a simple-minded but 
intelligent native, with the docility of a child but the reasoning 
powers of mature age, looked up and asked : "Is all that true ? 
Do you really believe that all the beasts, birds, and creeping 
things, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and en- 
tered Noah's ark ? And did Noah gather food for them all ; for 
the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest ? " The Bishop 
had recently acquired sufficient knowledge of geology to know 
that a universal Deluge, such as is described in Genesis, could not 
have taken place. So his heart answered in the words of the 
Prophet, " Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? " 
(Zech. xiii., 3.) He dared not do so, but gave the brother such a 
reply as satisfied him for the time, without throwing any dis- 
credit upon the general veracity of the Bible history. But being 
driven to search more deeply into these questions, the Bishop 
wrote to a friend in England to send him the best books on both 
sides of the question of the credibility of the Mosaic history. His 
friend sent him the works of Ewald and Kurtz, the former in 
German and the latter ki an English translation. Laying Ewald 
on the shelf, he studied Kurtz, who maintained with great zeal 
and ability the historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. He then 
grappled with Ewald, who maintained an opposite view. The 
result of the Bishop's study, with the aid of a few other German 
books, appeared in the first volume of his work issued in 1862, 
followed soon after by four more volumes. The books met with 
a very large sale in England. The first two volumes only are 
published as yet in this country. Perhaps the demand would not 
encourage the republication of the complete set. A great deal 
of the work is made up of apology, much more of answers to 
orthodox expositors and critics who have attempted to explain the 
very difficulties which presented themselves to the inquiring mind 
^of the author, and a large part of the last three volumes consists 
of elaborate criticism, and a presentation of various portions of 
the Pentateuch attributed to the different writers thereof. In 
this Abstract all those portions are passed by, the object being to 
compress into the smallest practicable compass the gist of the 
whole argument. Should the reader wish to see what can be said 
in answer to the very criticisms which Colenso makes, he will find 
it fairly presented and candidly considered by the author in his 
complete work. 



VOL. I. 



INCREDIBLE NARRATIVES OF THE PENTATEUCH. 

In "Vol. I. Bishop Colenso shows, by means of a number of 
prominent instances, that the books of the Pentateuch contain, in 
their own account of the story which they profess to relate, such 
remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities, 
that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual histori- 
cal matters of fact. Passing over the many difficulties which ex- 
ist in the earlier parts of the history, he begins at once with the 
account of the Exodus. 

- THE FAMILY OF JTJDAH. 

Judah was forty-two years old when he went down with Jacob 
into Egypt, being three years older than his brother Joseph, who 
was then thirty-nine. For " Joseph was thirty years old when 
he stood before Pharaoh " (Gr. xli. 46) ; and from that time nine 
years elapsed (seven of plenty and two of famine) before Jacob 
came down into Egypt. Judah was born in the fourth year of 
Jacob's double marriage (G. xxix. 35), being the fourth, of the 
6even children of Leah born in seven yaars ; and Joseph was born 
of Eachel in the seventh year (Gr. xxx. 24, 26 ; xxi. 41). In these 
forty-two years of Judah's life the following events are recorded 
in Gr. xxxviii. : 

He grows up, marries, and has three sons. The eldest grows 
up, marries, and dies. The second son marries his brother's widow 
and dies. The third son, after waiting to grow to maturity, de- 
clines to marry the widow. The widow then deceives Judah him- 
self, and bears him twins — Pharez and Zarah. One of these twins 
grows up and has two sons — Hezron and Hamul — born to him be- 
fore Jacob goes down into Egypt. 

ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE. 

Moses, at the command of Jehovah, gathered " all the congre- 
gation together unto the door of the tabernacle." (L. viii. 1-4.) 



4 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

By " all the congregation " is meant the whole body of the peo- 
ple, or at all events the main body of adult males in the prime 
of life, as is shown by numerous texts where the expression is 
used. (E. xvi. 2 ; L. xxiv. 14 ; N. i. 18.) In Jo. viii. 35, the 
women and cnildren are included. The mass of the male adults 
must have numbered more than the number of warriors, which is 
nowhere fixed at less than 600,000. Now the whole width of the 
tabernacle was only eighteen feet, as may be gathered from E. 
xxvi., so that a close column of 600,000 men covering this front, 
allowing two feet in width and eighteen inches in depth for each 
full-grown man, would have reached back nearly twenty miles ; 
or if the column covered the whole width of the court, which was 
ninety feet, it would have extended back nearly four miles. Tho 
whole court of the tabernacle comprised not more than 1,692 
square yards, after deducting the area of the tabernacle itself, 
which covered 103 square yards, and therefore could have held only 
5,000 people closely packed. The ministering Levites " from thirty 
to fifty years old " numbered 8,580 (N. iv. 48) ; even they, conse- 
quently, could not all have stood within the court. 

MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL. 

" These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel." 
(D. i. 1.) 

" And Moses called all Israel and said nnto them." (D. v. 1.) 

" There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which 
Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the 
women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conver- 
sant among them." (Jo. viii. 35.) 

How was it possible to do this before at least 2,000,000 people ? 
Could Moses or Joshua, as actual eye-witnesses, have expressed 
themselves in such extravagant language ? Surely not. 

EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS. 

The camp of the Israelites must have been at least a mile and 
a half in diameter. This would be allowing to each person on 
the average a space three times the size of a coffin for a full- 
grown man. The ashes, offal, and refuse of the sacrifices would 
therefore have to be carried by the priest in person a distance of 
three-quarters of a mile " without the camp, unto a clean place." 
/L. iv. 11, 12.) There were only three priests, namely, Aaron, 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 5 

Eleazer, and Ithamar, to do all this work for 2,000,000 people. 
All the wood and water would have to be brought into this im- 
mense camp from the outside. Where could the supplies have 
been got while the cimp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly 
twelve months together ? How could so great a camp have been 
kept clean ? 

But how huge does the difficulty become if we take the more 
reasonable dimensions of twelve miles square for this camp ; that 
is, about the size of London ! Imagine at least half a million of 
men having to go out daily a distance of six miles and back, to 
the suburbs, for the common necessities of nature, as the law 
directed. 

TWO NTTMBERINGS SIX MONTHS APART ; EXACT COINCIDENCE. 

In E. xxx. 11—13, Jehovah commanded Moses to take a census 
of the children of Israel, and in doing it to collect half a shekel 
of the sanctuary as atonement money. This expression " shekel 
of the sanctuary " is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven 
months before the tabernacle was made. In E. xxxviii. 26, we 
read of such a tribute being paid, but nothing is there said of any 
census being taken, only the number of those who paid, from twenty 
years old and upward, was 603,550 men. In N. i. 1-46, more than 
six months after this occasion, an account of an actual census is 
given, but no atonement money is mentioned. If in the first in- 
stance a census was taken, but accidentally omitted to be men- 
tioned, and in the second instance the tribute was paid but 
accidentally omitted likewise, it is nevertheless surprising that the 
number of adult males should have been identically the same 
(603,550) on both occasions, six months apart. 

THE ISEAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS. 

The Israelites at their exodus were provided with tents (E. xvi. 
16), in which they undoubtedly encamped and dwelt. They did 
not dwell in tents in Egypt, but in " houses " with " doors," " side- 
posts," and " lintels." These tents must have been made either 
of hair or of skin (E. xxvi. 7, 14, xxxvi. 14, 19) — more probably 
of the latter — and were therefore much heavier than the modern 
canvas tents. At least 200,000 were required to accommodate 
2,000,000 people. Supposing they took these tents from Egypt, 
how did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red Sea ? 



6 

The people had burdens enough without them. They had to 
carry their kneading troughs with the dough unleavened, their 
clothes, their cooking utensils, couches, infants, aged and intirm 
persons, and food enough for at least a month's use, or until 
manna was rjrovided for them in the wilderness, which was " on 
the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out 
of the land of Egypt" (E. xvi. 1.). One of these tents, with its 
poles, pegs, etc., would be a load for a single ox, so that they 
would have needed 200,000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen 
are not usually trained to carry goods on their backs, and will 
not do so without training. 

THE ISRAELITES AHMED. 

u The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of 
Egypt." (E. xiii. 18.) 

The marginal reading for " harnessed " is " by five in rank." 
But as this would make of the 600,000 men a column sixty-eight 
miles long, this translation only increases the difficulty, as it 
would have taken several days to have started them all off. The 
Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered " armed," or " in battle array." 
Certainly about a month after the exodus the Israelites " discom- 
fited " the Amalekites " with the edge of the sword." (E. xvii. 
13.) Hence they somehow possessed arms. And yet this army 
of 600,000 had become so debased by long servitude that they 
could not strike a single blow for liberty in Egypt, but could only 
weakly wail and murmur against Moses, saying, " It had been 
better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in 
the wilderness ! " 

INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER. 

The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single 
day to keep the passover, and actually did keep it. (E. xii.) At 
the first notice of any such feast, Jehovah said, " I will pass 
through the land of Egypt this night." The passover was to be 
killed " at even" on the same day that Moses received the com- 
mand. The women were at the same time ordered to borrow 
jewels of their neighbors, the Egyptians. After midnight of the 
same day the Israelites received notice to start for the wilderness. 
No one was to go out of his house till morning, when they were 
to take their hurried flight with their cattle and herds. How 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 7 

could 2,000,000 people, scattered about over a wide district as they 
must have been with their cattle and herds, have gotten ready 
and taken a simultaneous hurried flight at twelve hours' notice ? 

MARCH OUT OF EGYPT. 

The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Eed 
Sea, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert 
in three days ! Marching fifty abreast, the able-bodied warri- 
ors alone would have filled up the road for seven miles, and the 
whole multitude would have made a column twenty-two miles long, 
so that the last of the body could not have been started until the 
front had advanced that distance — more than two days' journey 
for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and cattle must have 
formed another vast column, covering a much greater tract of 
ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two 
millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Eed Sea 
over a desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately ? 
How did the people manage with the sick and infirm, and espe- 
cially with the 750 births that must have taken place in the three 
days' march ? 

THE SHEEP AND CATTLE IN THE "WILDERNESS. 

The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of cattle. 
(E. xxxiv. 3.) They sojourned nearly a year before Sinai, where 
there was no feed for cattle ; and the wilderness in which 
they sojourned nearly forty years is now and was then a desert. 
(D. xxxii. 10 ; viii. 15.) The cattle surely did not subsist on 
manna ! 

EXTENT AND POPULATION *OF THE LAND OF CANAAN. 

The extent of land occupied by the Israelites in the time of 
Joshua was about 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000 acres — a little 
larger than the State of Vermont. The number of Israelites was 
not less than 2,000,000. This limited, mountainous, and by no 
means fertile area of country, therefore, had to subsist these 2,000,- 
000 people, and prior to their occupation of it had subsisted " seven 
nations greater and mightier" than the Israelitish nation itself. 
(D. vii. 1.) 



8 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

FECUNDITY OF THE HEBREW MOTHERS. 

" All the first-born males from a month old and upwards, of 
those that were numbered, were 22,273." (N. iii. 43.) The lowest 
computation of the whole number of the people at that time is 
2,000,000. The number of males would be 1,000,000. Dividing 
the latter number by the number of first born gives 44, which 
would be the average number of boys in each family, or about 
88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first born were 
females the males were not counted, the number of children by 
each mother would be reduced to 44. 

PRODIGIOUS INCREASE IN FOUR GENERATIONS. 

The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt 
was 70 (E. i. 5). They sDJourned in Egypt 215 years. It could 
not have been 430 years, as would appear from E. xii. 40. The 
marginal chronology makes the period 215 years, and there were 
only four generations to the exodus, namely, Levi, Kohath, Am- 
ram, and Moses (E. vi. 16, 18, 20). How could these people have 
increased in 215 years from 70 souls so as to number 600,000 war- 
riors ? It would have required an average number of 46 children 
to each father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 53 
sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth generation there 
would have been only 6,311 males, provided they were all living 
at the time of the exodus, instead of 1,000,000. If we add the 
fifth generation, who would be mostly children, the total number 
of males would not have exceeded 28,465. 

EXTRAORDINARY INCREASE OF THE DANITES. 

Dan in the first generation had but one son (G. xlvi. 23), and 
yet in the fourth generation his descendants had increased to 
62,700 warriors (N. ii. 26), or 64,400 (N. xxvi. 43). Each of his 
sons and grandsons must have had about 80 children of both 
sexes. On the other hand, the Levites increased the number of 
" males from a month old and upwards " during the 38 years in 
fhe wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 (N. iii. 39, xxvi. 62) 
and the tribe of Manasseh durins: the same time increased from 
32,200 (N. i. 35) to 52,700 (xxvi. 34). 

IMPOSSIBLE DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS. 
Aaron and his two sons were, the only priests during Aaron's 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 9 

lifetime. They had to make all the burnt offerings on a single 
altar nine feet square (E. xxxvii. 1), besides attending to other 
priestly duties for 2,000,000 people. At the birth of every child, 
both a burnt offering and a sin offering had to be made. The 
number of births must be reckoned at least 250 a day, for 
which consequently 500 sacrifices would have to be offered daily 
- — an impossible duty to be performed by three priests. For poor 
women pigeons were accepted instead of lambs. If half of 
them offered pigeons, and only one instead of two, it would have 
required 90,000 pigeons annually for this purpose alone. Where 
did they get the pigeons ? How could they have had them at all 
under Sinai ? There were thirteen cities where the presence of 
these three priests was required (Jo. xxi. 19). The three priests 
had to eat a large portion of the burnt offerings (N. xviii. 10) and 
all the sin offerings — 250 pigeons a day — more than 80 for each 
priest. 

IMPOSSIBLE SACRIFICES AT THE PASSOVER. 

In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000 lambs 
must have been killed, i. e., one for each family (E. xii. 3, 4). The 
Lcites slew them, and the three priests had to sprinkle the 
blood from their hands (1 Chr. xxx. 16, xxxv. 11). The killing 
had to be done " between two evenings " (E. xii. 6), and the 
sprinkling had to be done in about two hours. The killing must 
have been done in the court of the tabernacle (L. i. 3, 5, xvii. 
2-6). The area of the court could have held but 5,000 people at 
most. Here the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of 1,250 a 
minute, and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of 
more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours. 

INCREDIBLE SLAUGHTER. 

The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded at the 
exodus, was 600,000 (E. xii. 37) ; subsequently it was 603,550 
(E. xxxviii. 25-28), and at the end of their wanderings it was 
601,730 (1ST. xxvi. 51). But in 2 Chr. xiii. 3 Abijah, king of Judah, 
brings 400,000 men against Jeroboam, king of Israel, with 
800,000, and " there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 chosen men " 
(v. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Ju- 
dah in one day 120,000 valiant men (2 Chr. xxviii. 6.) 



10 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

UNPARALLELED PRODIGY OF VALOR. 
Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites are recorded 
in N. xxxi. as slaying all the male Midianites, taking captive all 
the females and children, seizing all their cattle and flocks, num- 
bering 808,000 head, taking all their goods and burning all their 
cities, without the loss of a single man. Then they killed all the 
women and children except 32,000 virgins, whom they kept for 
themselves. There would seem to have been at least 80,000 
females in the aggregate, of whom 48,000 were killed, besides 
(say) 20,000 boys. The number of men slaughtered must have 
been about 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed four 
men in battle, carried off eight captive women and children, and 
driven home sixty-seven head of cattle. And then after reaching 
home, as a pastime, by command of Moses, he had to murder six 
of his captive women and children in cold blood. 



VOL. II. 



IRRECONCILABLE DIFFICULTIES. 

Ik vol. II. Bishop Colenso devotes a preface and a first chapter 
to the maintenance of the criticisms of vol. I. He shows that it 
is impossible to apply any system of reduction to the exaggerated 
numbers given in every part of the Pentateuch, without encoun- 
tering difficulties and contradictions quite as. formidable as those 
presented by him. He then proceeds to investigate the question 
of the real origin, age, and authorship of the different portions of 
the Pentateuch and other early books of the Bible, and makes the 
following points : 

CONTRADICTORY STORY OF THE CREATION AND DELUGE. 

The cosmogony of the 2d chapter of Genesis is contradictory 
to that of chapter 1 in six particulars, the chief of which is, that 
in the first chapter the birds and beasts are created before man, 
and in the second after man. Again, in the first account Adam 
and Eve are created together, completing the work of creation, 
and in the second man is first made, then the beasts and birds, 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 11 

and lastly woman. It is therefore apparent that the two accounts 
were written by different men ; and this is corroborated by the 
use of the name Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) in chapter 2, while 
in chapter 1 it is simply God (Elohim). 

A similar criticism is applied to the story of the flood, which 
is evidently composed by two different writers, one making Noah 
take into the ark animals of every kind, including clean beasts, 
by twos (G. vii. 8, 9), and the other making him take in the clean 
beasts by sevens (v. 2, 5). In this story, as in that of the cre- 
ation, one writer uses the name of God simply, and the other 
Lord God. 

ELOHISTIO AND JEHOVISTIC WRITERS. 

The book of Genesis bears evidence throughout of being the 
work of two different writers, one of whom is distinguished by 
the constant use of the word Elohim (translated " God "), and the 
other by the admixture with it of the name Jehovah (translated 
" Lord "). The Elohistic passages, taken together, form a very 
tolerably connected whole, only interrupted here and there by a 
break caused apparently by the Jehovistic writer having removed 
some part of the Elohistic narrative, replacing it, perhaps, by one 
of his own. Thus there are two contradictory accounts of the 
creation and of the deluge intermingled. 

THE PENTATEUCH: COMPOSED LONG AFTER MOSES'S DEATH. 

The books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in 
the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or anywhere else, except 
in our modern translations. They must have been composed 
at a later age than that of Moses or Joshua, as is shown by nu- 
merous passages that speak of places and things by names that 
were not known nor given till long after the death of these men. 
For example, Gilgal, mentioned in D. xi. 30, was not given as the 
name of that place till after the entrance into Canaan (Jo. v. 9). 
Dan, mentioned in G. xiv. 14, was not so called till long after the 
time of Moses (Jo. xix. 47). In G. xxxvi. 31, the beginning of 
the reign of kings over Israel is spoken of historically, an event 
which did not occur before the time of Samuel. 

THE BOOK OF JOSHUA WRITTEN IN DAVID'S LIFETIME. 

In Josh. x. 12-14, the miracle of the sun and moon standing 



12 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

still is recorded, and in verse 13 these words are found : " Is not 
this written in the Book of Jasher?" Now, in 2 Sam. i. 18, we 
read that David " bade them teach the children of Judah the use 
of the bow. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher." The 
natural inference is, that this book was written not earlier than 
the time of David, and the above passage in the book of Joshua 
was written of course after that. 

THE BOOKS OF KINGS WRITTEN AS LATE AS 561 B. C. 

The Books of Kings seem to have been written as late, at least, 
as 561 B. C, because in 2 Kings xxv. 27-30, mention is made of 
Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, taking Jehoiachin, king of 
Judah, out of prison, and feeding him " all the days of his life." 
Evil-merodach came to the throne 561 B. C, and reigned two 
years. 

THE CHRONICLES WRITTEN ABOUT 400 B. C. 

The author of the Books of Chronicles was probably a priest 
or Levite, who wrote about 400 B. C. or nearly 200 years after 
the captivity, and 650 years after David came to the throne. 
These books go over the same grounds as the books of Samuel 
and Kings, and often in the very same words. The Chronicles 
are very inaccurate, and often contradictory to Samuel and Kings. 
In 1 Chr. iii. 19-21, we have the following genealogy : Zerubba- 
bel, Hananiah, Pelatiah ; so that the Book was written after the 
birth of Zerubbabel's grandson, and Zerubbabel was the leader 
of the expedition which returned to Jerusalem after the decree 
of Cyrus, 536 B. C. 

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH WRITTEN AFTER 456 B. C. 

The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah were, of course, written 
after 456 B. C, when Ezra arrived at Jerusalem. Nehemiah's 
last act of reformation was in 409 B. C, and yet in IS* eh. xii. 11, 
we have given the genealogy of Jaddua, who was high priest in 
Alexander's time, 332 B. C. 

FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH. 

In E. vi. 2-8, God says to Moses : " By my name Jehovah was* 
I not known to them " (the patriarchs), and yet the name Jehovah, 
translated Lord, is repeatedly used in the book of Genesis. If 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 13 

the name originated in the days of Moses, lie certainly would 
not, in writing the story of the Pentateuch, have put it into the 
mouths of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (G. xiv. 22, 
xxvi. 22, xxviii. 16), much less into that of a heathen man, 
Abiinelech (xxvi. 28). The contradiction is explained by the fact 
that two different writers were concerned in composing the nar- 
rative, one of whom, in speaking of God, uses the name Elohim, 
and the other the name Jehovah. The ground-work of the Pen- 
tateuch (and but a small portion of it, as tine Bishop proposes to 
show hereafter) was composed before the name Jehovah had been 
familiar. 

SAMUEL PROBABLY THE ELOHISTIC WRITER. 

During and after the time of Samuel, we observe in the books 
known by his name a gradually increasing partiality for the use 
of names compounded with Jehovah ( jo or iah), while there is 
no instance of the kind throughout the Book of Judges, which 
contains numerous names compounded with Elohim (el). In the 
first seven chapters of the first Book of Samuel we find the follow- 
ing names compounded with Elohim : jE^kanah, i<7Zihu, Eli, Sam- 
uel, JEle&zer ; while we meet with but one name compounded with 
Jehovah, viz : Joshua (vi. 18). But this name evidently belongs to 
a man living considerably later than the time of Samuel, for the 
passage reads, " which stone remaineth unto this day in the field 
of Joshua." Then we read in viii. 1, 2, " When Samuel was old, 
he made his sons judges over Israel ; now the name of his first- 
born was Joel, and the name of his second AbiaA." It is remark- 
able that his first-born son should be named Joel, a contraction 
of the compound name Jehovah and Elohim. In 1 Chr. vi. 28, 
we are told that the name of Samuel's eldest son was Yashni. 
From this it would seem that the name was afterwards changed 
to Joel. In the subsequent chapters there is a gradual increase 
of names compounded with Jehovah. 

In the Elohistic portions of the Book of Genesis, in some 
of which a multitude of names occur, and many of them com- 
pounded with Elohim, in the form of El, there is not a single 
one compounded with Jehovah, in the form either of the prefix 
Jeho or Jo, or the termination jah, both of which were so com- 
monly employed in the later times. The name Jehovah is first 



14 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

introduced by the Eloliistic writer in Ex. vi. 3, as a new name for 
the God of Israel. 

From these and other evidences adduced, Bishop Colenso con- 
cludes with some degree of confidence that Samuel was the Elo- 
histic writer of the Pentateuch, and that the Jehovistic writer 
must have written not earlier than the latter part of David's life, 
when the name of Jehovah had become quite common, and names 
began to be compounded with it freely. The narrative being 
written from 300 to 400 years after the death of Moses, could not, 
therefore, have been historically true, but may have been intended 
as a series of parables, based on legendary facts, some of which, 
perhaps, had been recorded from time to time in a roll deposited 
in the temple archives, to which access was occasionally had by 
the priests. 

[Note. — Sir Isaac Newton, in his " Observations upon the 
Prophecies," etc., concludes that Samuel put the books of Moses 
and Joshua into the form now extant, inserting into the book of 
Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) the race of the kings of Edom.] 



VOL. III. 



THE AUTHOR OF DEUTERONOMY. 

In vol. III., Bishop Colenso presents in great detail arguments 
to prove that the book of Deuteronomy was written by a differ- 
ent hand from that or those which wrote the rest of the Penta- 
teuch. No attentive reader of the Bible, he says, can have failed 
to remark the striking difference which exists between the style 
and contents of Deuteronomy and those of the other books gen- 
erally of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy forms the living portion, 
the sum and substance, of the whole Pentateuch. When wo 
speak of the " law of Moses," we speak of Deuteronomy. In the 
New Testament Deuteronomy is frequently quoted with emphasis 
as the law of Moses. 

The principal proofs of a different authorship of this book are 
as follows : 

1. Each writer distinctly professes to give the identical com- 
mandments as spoken (E. xx. 11) or written (D. v. 22) by Jehovah ; 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 15 

but each assigns an entirely different reason for the observance 
of the Sabbath. In Exodus it is because God rested on the seventh 
day ; in Deuteronomy it is because he brought the Israeli ces out of 
Egypt "through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm." 
It is remarkable that the Deuteronomist should ignore the reason 
assigned in Exodus. 

2. In the other books of the Pentateuch, the priests are always 
styled the " sons of Aaron" (L. i. 5, 7, 8, 11, ii. 2, iii. 2, xiii. 2 ; N. 
x. 8 ; comp. L. xxi. 21), and never the " sons of Levi." In 
Deuteronomy they are always called " sons of Levi," or " Levites " 
(D. xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, xxxi. 9 ; comp. 
xviii. 1, 5), and never " sons of Aaron." 

3. The Deuteronomist, in using the word " law," invariably re- 
fers to the whole law (D. i. 5, iv. 8, 44, xvii. 11, 18, 19, xxvii. 3, 8, 
28) ; the other books almost always use the words with reference 
to particular laws (E. xii. 49 ; L. vi. 9, 14, 25, vii. 1, 7, 11, 37). 

4. The Deuteronomist confines all sacrifices to one place 
" which Jehovah would choose," " to put his name there " (D. xii. 
5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26) ; the other books say nothing about this, but 
expressly imply the contrary (E. xx. 24). 

5. The Deuteronomist, though he strictly enjoins the observ- 
ance of the other three great feasts, and the Passover (xvi. 1-17), 
makes no mention whatever of the Feast of Trumpets (L. xxiii. 
23-25, N. xxix. 1-6), or the Day of Atonement (L. xxiii. 26-32, 

"N. xxix. 7-11), on each of which days it was expressly ordered 
that the people should " do no servile work," but should hold " a 
holy convocation." The directions in N. xxix are supposed to 
have been laid down by Jehovah only a few weeks previous to 
the address of Moses in Deuteronomy ; yet here in making a final 
summary of duties, as he is represented as doing, he omits all 
mention of those two important days, upon which the same stress 
is laid in L. xxiii. as on the other three great feasts, and for the 
neglect of which death was threatened as a punishment. 

6. In D. viii. 4, xxix. 5, and elsewhere, mention is made of 
clothing which lasted the Israelites forty years without waxing old 
upon them. No mention is made in the older narrative of this 
miraculous provision of clothing. 

7. In D. ix. 18, Moses says he "fell down before the Lord as 
at the first forty days and nights," and fasted as he had done also 
at the first (v. 9). According to the older story, he fasted only 



16 'ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

when ho went up the second time — not the first (E. xxiv. 18, 
xxxiv. 28). 

8. In E. xviii. 25, 26, we read that Moses chose able men out 
of all Israel, and made them judges over the people. This was 
just before the giving of the law at Sinai. In D. i. 6-18, the ap- 
pointment of these same officers is made to take place nearly 
twelve months after the giving of the law, when the Israelites 
are just about to leave Horeb (v. 6). In E. xix. we find that the 
giving of the law was in the third month after the de- 
parture from Egypt. The Israelites took their departure from 
Sinai in the second month of the second year (N. x. 11), and this 
was the time referred to in D. i. when these judges were appoint- 
ed (v. 6, 9). 

9. In D. x. 1-5, mention is made of the ark being prepared as 
a receptacle of the table of the laws before Moses goes up into 
the mount. The older narrative says nothing about an ark being 
prepared beforehand for the tables (E. xxxiv. 29). It is only 
after comiug down with the second set of tables that Moses sum- 
mons the wise-hearted (E. xxxv. 10-12) to "come and mako all 
that the Lord hath commanded, the tabernacle, his tent and his 
covering, etc., the ark," etc. The tabernacle is constantly men- 
tioned in the three middle books of the Pentateuch, but is never 
once named in Deuteronomy until the announcement to Moses in 
xxxi. 14, 15, that he should die. And this passage is shown to be 
an interpolation, with several others at the close of the book. 

10. In D. x. 8, we read, "At that time the Lord separated the 
tribe of Levi," i. e., after the death of Aaron (v. 6). In N. iii. 5, 
6, 7, the separation is made to take place in Aaron's lifetime. 

11. The Deuteronomist lays great stress on the duty of being 
charitable and hospitable to the Levite, placing him in the same 
category as the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and treat- 
ing him as a sort of mendicant when sojourning within the gates, 

'thus ignoring the fact that the children of Levi were entitled to 
one-tenth in Israel for an inheritance (N. xviii. 21). Not a word 
is said about the Levites having any divine right to demand or at 
least to accept the payment of tithes from the people, according 
to the provisions supposed to have been made by Jehovah him- 
self in N. xviii. 21. The Deuteronomist makes Moses speak of 
the Levite as an object of charity only a few months after the pro- 
mulgation of this law in Numbers about the Levites' inheritance. 



ON THE PENTATEUCH 17 

Not a trace of poverty in regard to the Levites is found in the 
first four books. Under the later kings we have unmistakable 
indications of the poverty of the priests. 

12. In D. xiv. 19, every creeping thing that flieth is declared 
unclean, and is forbidden to be eaten. In L. xi. 21-23, every 
creeping thing that flieth is allowed to be eates, and four forms 
of locusts are mentioned. 

13. Numerous expressions common throughout the first four 
books are never employed by the Deuteronomist, and vice versa. 
Bishop Colenso cites thirty-three expressions in Deuteronomy, 
each of which is found on an average eight times in that book, 
but not one of which is found even once in the other four books. 
In Deuteronomy the expression " the Lord thy God," or " the 
Lord our God," occurs with remarkable frequency ; but it is very 
rarely found in the other books. 

WHEN WAS DEUTERONOMY WRITTEN, AND BY WHOM? 

1. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived after the other 
writers of the Pentateuch, since he refers throughout to passages 
in the story of the exodus recorded in the other books, and refers 
directly, in xxiv. 8, to the laws about leprosy given in Leviticus. 
If, therefore, the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of the Penta- 
teuch were written not earlier than the times of Samuel, David, 
and Solomon, it is plain that the Deuteronomist must have lived 
no earlier, but probably later than the time of Solomon. 

2. The phrase " sons of Levi " and " Levites," always used by 
the Deuteronomist, is invariably used by Jeremiah and the other 
later prophets (Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 ; Ezek. xliii. 19, xliv. 15, 
xlviii. 13 ; Mai. iii. 3. Comp. Mai. ii, 4, 8). The Deuteronomist, 
like Jeremiah, uses the word "law " in the singular only in speak- 
ing of the whole law (Jer. ii. 8, vi. 19, viii. 8, ix. 13). The Deuter- 
onomist confines all sacrifices to the place where " Jehovah would 
place his name ;" so Jeremiah speaks repeatedly of Jerusalem or 
the temple as a place called by Jehovah's name (vii. 10, 11, 14, 
30, xxv. 29). Numerous other expressions are used by the Deu- 
teronomist in common with the 1 iter Biblical writers only. Out 
of thirty-three expressions, each of which occurs on an average 
eight times in Deuteronomy, but not one of which is found in 
the other books of the Pentateuch, seventeen are found repeated 
with more or less frequency in Jeremiah, and many of the others 



13 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

or their representatives are partially repeated in his prophecies, 
Expressions do occasionally occur in the other books of the Pen- 
tateuch which are peculiar to Deuteronomy ; but it is possible, if 
not probable, that the writer of the latter book may have inter- 
polated those few passages. 

3. The Deuteronomist, in xvii. 2-7, expresses strong abhor- 
rence of all manner of idolatry, and especially of the worship of 
the " sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven," the first in- 
timation of which worship is found in the reign of Josiah's father, 
Manasseh (2 K. xxi. 3, 5). 

4. That the book of Deuteronomy was written after the time 
of Samuel is shown by the fact that the laws referring to the 
kingdom seem not to have been known to Samuel (1 S. viii. 6-18), 
nor to the later writer of Samuel's doings. In S. xii. 17-19, he 
charges it upon the people as a great sin that they had desired a 
king. 

5. The mention of the kingdom in D. xvii. 14-18, with the 
distinct reference to the dangers likely to arise to the State from 
the king multiplying to himself " wives," " silver," *' gold," and 
" horses," implies that the book was written after the age of Sol- 
omon; and this is confirmed by the frequent reference to the 
place which Jehovah would choose, i. e. y Jerusalem and the 
temple. 

6. The tabernacle, so frequently spoken of in the three middle 
books of the Pentateuch, but never once named by the Deuteron- 
omist till near the close of the book, in an interpolated passage, 
had long since passed away in Jeremiah's time. 

7. That the book was written after the captivity of the ten 
tribes, in the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, is evident from the 
fact that the sorrows of that event are referred to as matters well 
known and things of the past (D. iv. 25-28). 

8. In 2 K. xxii. and xxiii. we find an account of the dis- 
covery of the " book of the law in the house of the Lord," in 
the eighteenth year of King Josiah, which caused a great sensa-" 
tion. Where conld this book have been hidden for eight centu- 
ries ? Could it have escaped the notice of David, Solomon, and 
others ? Can we resist the suspicion that the writing of the book 
and the placing of it where it was found were pretty nearly con- 
temporaneous ? Shaphan, the scribe, read the book before the 
king, and appears to hive read all the words of it. Again the 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 19 

next day the king himself read in the ears of the people " all the 
words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house 
of the Lord." The name " book of the covenant " cannot weil 
apply to all the Pentateuch, though it may apply to the book of 
Deuteronomy, or to the chief portion of it, since we find it written 
in D. xxix. 1, " These are the words of the covenant." 

9. The whole description of the nature and effect of the words 
contained in the book shows that it must have been the book of 
Deuteronomy. A reform took place in regard to idolatrous prac- 
tices immediately after the discovery of this book. Never before 
was such a passover held as in that same year ; but we have no 
sign whatever of another such passover being held, even by 
Josiah. Perhaps after a time the young king* also became aware 
of the real facts of the case, and his zeal may have been dampened 
by the discovery. 

10. In that age and time of Jewish debasement, when the law 
book as it then existed was not well suited to the present necessi- 
ties of the people, Jeremiah or any other seer may have considered 
himself justified in summoning up the spirit of the older law in 
a powerful address adapted to the pressing circumstances of the 
times, putting words into the mouth of the departed lawgiver, 
Moses, to reinforce the laws by solemn prophetical utterances. 
The intention may have been to put down by force the gross idol- 
atries which abounded in the kingdom, through the influence of 
a disguised prophecy upon the mind of a well-meaning king. 

11. The book of Deuteronomy must have been written after 
the great spread among the tribes of Canaan of the worship of 
the sun and moon and hosfc of heaven (D. iv. 19). It seems to 
have been first generally practised in Judah in the reign of Ma- 
nasseh, the father of Josiah (2 K. xxi. 3, 5; 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3). 
Manasseh's grandfather Ahaz may have introduced it, as appears 
from a comparison of 2 K. xxiii. 12 ; but it probably was not 
much practised, and it certainly was not adopted by his son 
Hezekiah. In Manasseh's reign, however, it seems to have 
nourished. 

12. It must have been written before the time of Josiah's 
reformation, since the words ascribed to Huldah the prophetess, 
in D. xxii. 15-20, refer to it ; for she says, " All the words of this 
book wherein the king hath read shall be fulfilled." She was 
probably in the secret, and shared the hope of a great reforma- 



20 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

tion, and there is little doubt that the " book of the law " was the 
direct cause of that reformation. The whole theocratic state was 
in imminent danger from the idolatrous practices that were pre- 
vailing. So the Deuteronomist laid down a new set of laws in 
the name of Moses, and gave a new and firmer foundation to tho 
theocratic state. The attempted reformation was not, however, 
successful, except to secure temple service at Jerusalem. That 
introduced dead formalism, which existed until the Israelitish 
nation became extinct. 

13. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that it was written 
either in the latter part of Manasseh's reign or the early part of 
Josiah's. If it was written in the latter part of Manasseh's reign, 
the author must have lived, and probably have died, without see- 
ing the result of his labor — without betraying his secret ; or, if 
he lived until the disclosure of it, it is difficult to account for hig 
long silence with respect to its existence, which was maintained 
during seventeen years of Josiah's reign, when the king's docile 
piety and youth would have encouraged the production of such 
a book if it really existed, and there was such imperative necessity 
for that reformation to be begun as soon as possible, with a view 
to which the book was written. Thus it seems most reasonable 
to suppose that the book was in process of composition during 
the first seventeen years of Josiah's reign, when the youth of the 
prince and his willingness to follow the teachings of the prophets 
around him gave every encouragement for such an attempt being 
made to bring about the great change that was needed. 

14. Jeremiah lived in that very age, and began to prophesy 
in the thirteenth year of Josiah, four or five years before this 
book was found. 

IMMORAL COMMANDS OF DEUTERONOMY. 
Bishop Colenso is glad to know that such commands as these, 
taken from this book, are at variance with God's law : 

1. Excluding from the congregation of the Lord persons mu- 
tilated in helpless infancy, while those by whose agency the act 
in question was encouraged or perhaps performed are allowed 
free access to the sanctuary. 

2. Excluding in like manner the innocent base-born child, 
but taking no account of the vicious parent. 

3. Commanding the stubborn, rebellious son to be stoned to 






ON THE PENTATEUCH. 21 

death, when oftentimes the father and mother, who by their bad 
example had corrupted, or by their faulty training had ruined 
their child, deserved rather to suffer punishment. 

4. Ordering that any city of any distant people wrth whom 
Israel might be at war should first be summoned to surrender, 
and if it should refuse to make peace on condition of all its in- 
habitants becoming tributary and doing service to Israel, it should' 1 
then be besieged and every male thereof should be put to the f 
sword ; while of the cities which Israel was to inherit they were 
to save nothing that breathed, lest they should become corrupted 
by their idolatries and abominations. 



VOL. IV. 



THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. 

In vol. IT., after a long preface devoted to answers to objections 
made to positions taken and supported in the previous volumes, 
Bishop Colenso proceeds to make a critical comparison of the 
Elohistic and Jehovistic passages in the first eleven chapters of 
Genesis, to show that they were composed by two distinct writers. 
The author then attacks the scientific and historical truthful- 
ness of the Scripture cosmogony, making the following points: 

THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION. 

Despite all the criticisms of the word "create," the plain 
meaning of the first verse in Genesis is, that in the beginning of 
the six days, as the first act of that continuous six days' work 
about six thousand years ago, according to the Biblical chronolo- 
gy, God created the heaven and the earth. But geology teache3 ' 
that the earth had existed millions of years before, and was brought 
into its present form by continual changes through a long succes- 
sion of ages, during which enormous periods innumerable varieties 
of animal and vegetable life abounded, from a time beyond all poor- 
er of calculation. So, also, God is represented as completing the 
work of creation in six literal days, and resting upon and sancti- 
fying the seventh. In E. xx. 11, it is expressly said that " in six 
days God made the heaven and the earth, and all that in them is." 



22 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

That they were not indefinite periods of time is further shown by 
the setting of two great lights in the firmament on the fourth day, 
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light 
from the darkness. If the first three days were indefinite days, 
why is the same word in the Hebrew used for that portion of the 
twenty-four hours which the sun rules over ? Is the sense of the 
word day, from the fourth day onward, to be considered different 
from that of the same word as used prior thereto ? 

THE ORDER OF CREATION. 

The order of creation in Genesis is, first plants, then fish, then 
fowls, then cattle and reptiles, and lastly man. Geology show3 
that in the different ages plants and animals of all kinds appeared 
together at the same time on the earth ; so that they were not 
successively created, as the Bible says, first all the plants, and then 
all the fishy etc. 

CHAOS. 

Genesis represents the earth as " without form and void," in a 
state of utter chaos and confusion, and wrapped in darkness, im- 
mediately before the races of plants and animals now existing on 
its face were created. Geology proves that the earth had existed 
generally just as now, with the same kind of animal and vegeta- 
ble life as now, long before the six thousand years implied in the 
Bible story, and that no sudden convulsion took place at that time 
by which they might have been destroyed, so as to give occasion 
for a new creation. 

THE SUN AND MOON CREATED ON THE FOURTH DAY. 

It is a mere evasion of the plain meaning of words to say that 
God meant the sun and moon to appear first only on the fourth 
day, although they had been long before created — appear, that is, 
to the earth, when, however, according to the story, there was as 
yet no living creature on its face to see them ! The writer uses 
the same Hebrew word " made " as he had used before when he 
says God made the firmament, and which he afterwards uses when 
he says God made the animals. 

THE FIRMAMENT OF WATERS. 

The dividing of the waters below the firmament from the 



GN THE PENTATEUCH. 23 

waters above it was founded upon the idea that the sky was an 
expanse, a spread-out surface, and that the upper waters dropped 
rain. 

WHAT DID BEASTS OF PREY EAT? 
To every animal God gave every green herb for meat. The 
question arises, how were the beasts of prey to be supported, since 
their teeth, stomachs, and bodily form were not adapted for eating 
herbs? But in fact geology teaches that ravenous creatures 
preyed on their fellow creatures, and lived on flesh, in all ages of 
the world's past history, just exactly as they do now. Besides, al- 
most all fishes are carnivorous. 

THE ZENDAVESTA STORY OF CREATION. 

The account of the creation in Genesis corresponds with that 
of the Zendavesta, which was composed near the same locality. 
According to the latter, the universe was created in six periods of 
time by Ormuzd, in the following order : 1. The heaven and the 
terrestrial light between heaven and earth ; 2. The water ; 3. The 
earth ; 4. The trees and plants ; 5. Animals ; 6. Man ; whereupon 
the Creator rested and connected the Divine origin of the festivals 
with these periods of creation. The Persian tradition is substan- 
tially the same, showing that the story of Genesis had the same 
origin. It is an ancient myth. 

ADAM FORMED OF DUST. 

"And the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the 
ground " (Adamha). A play upon words. 

THE RIVERS EUPHRATES, TIGRIS, NILE, AND INDUS UNITED. 

The four rivers of Eden are made to unite in one. One of 
these rivers is the Euphrates, and there is but little doubt that the 
Hiddekel and the Gihon, as Josephus says, are the Tigris and Nile 
respectively, and Pison probably the Indus. 

DEATH THREATENED FOR DISOBEDIENCE. 

" In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die " 
How could the first man understand what death was? He had 
not seen it. 

NAMING OF THE ANIMALS. 

Man was created before the other animals (the fishes excepted) 



/ 



24 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

according to the second chapter, and they were brought to Adam 
to be named. How could the white bear of the frozen zone and 
the humming bird of the tropics have met in one spot to be 
named, and then dispersed again ? 

WAS EDEN THE CENTRE OF CREATION? 

Was there only one centre of creation ? Were all reptiles, 
fishes, and insects, as well as all plants, created in Eden only, and 
thence scattered to the ends of the earth ? — the Indian corn, for 
instance, which was not known in the eastern hemisphere until 
after the discovery of America ? 

ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES. 

It is even now an open scientific question whether the Austra- 
lian savage, the African negro, the American Indian, and the Cau- 
casian are all descendants of a first pair. 

WOMAN MADE OUT OF A RIB. 
The making of the woman out of the man's rib is thought by 
6ome to convey an idea of the intimate relationship, sacredness, 
and indissolubility of the conjugal state. The Greenlanders 
believe that the first woman was fashioned out of the man's 
thumb ! 

THE CUNNING SERPENT. 

" Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the 
field." It is the Jehovistic interpolater who writes this passage. 
Here is the origin of evil, in a speaking serpent. 

THE SERPENT CRAWLING AND EATING DUST. 

"Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat." 
Here the serpent is represented as degraded and debased from 
what it was originally. But geology shows that it was the same 
kind of creature before man existed on the earth. As to the ser- 
pent's eating dust, it is a falsehood founded on the scantiness of 
its food. As to the enmity between the woman's seed and the 
serpent, it is not true. A snake is held in great respect among 
the Zulus. It was an emblem of healing wisdom among the 
Greeks, and a symbol of eternity to the Phoenicians. 

PAIN IN CHILDBIRTH. 

Pain to the woman in childbirth, and the subjection of woman 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 25 

to her husband, are fancies in the imagination of the Hebrew- 
writer. The subjection of the female to the male is not peculiar 
to man amongst animals ; and in tropical countries childbirth is 
attended with little more pain and disturbance than the birth of 
a beast. 

CURSING THE GROUND. 
" Cursed is the ground for thy sake." Geology shows no signs 
of any such curse. Thorns and briers were as plentiful in the 
primeval world as now ; and a life of toil and exertion is far more 
healthful and ennobling than one of indolence and inactivity. 

RETURNING TO DUST. 

" Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast 
taken." Geology shows that living creatures died long before. 
"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This 
would imply that Adam was not punished by death for his sin. 
Death of the body was regarded by the ancient writers as the 
end of all. No mention is made of the immortality of the soul. 

PERSIAN STORY OF THE FIRST PAIR. 

The Persian myth is similar to that of the Hebrews. The 
first couple, Meshia and Meshiana, lived originally in purity and 
innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised to them by the 
Creator. An evil demon (Dev) came to them in the form of a 
serpent, and gave them fruit of a wonderful tree, which imparted 
immortality. Consequently they fell and forfeited the eternal 
happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts and 
clothed themselves ; they built houses, but paid not their debt of 
gratitude to the Deity, and the evil demon obtained still more 
perfect power over their minds. 

CHINESE STORY OF THE FALL. 
The Chinese have their age of virtue, when Nature furnished 
abundant food, and man lived peacefully, surrounded by all the 
beasts, not knowing what it meant to do good or evil, and not 
subject to disease or death. But partly by an undue thirst for 
knowledge, and partly by increasing sensuality and the seduction 
of woman, he fell. Passion and lust ruled his mind, war with 
the animals began, and all Nature stood inimically arrayed 
against him. 



26 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

PARADISE OF THE GREEKS. 

The Greeks had their Paradise or Elysium — their garden of 
Hesperides, with its golden apples, in the islands of the blessed, 
guarded by ever- watchful serpents. 

SACRED MOUNTAIN OF THE HINDOOS. 

The Hindoos have their sacred mountain, Meru, in which no 
sinful man can exist. It is perpetually clothed in the golden 
rays of the sun, guarded by dreadful dragons, adorned by celes- 
tial plants, and watered by four rivers, which separate and flow 
in four directions. 

WHO WAS TO KILL CAIN? 
Cain is made to say, " Every one that findeth me shall slay 
me." The only man on the face of the earth was Adam ; Seth 
was not yet born. 

CAIN'S DESCENDANTS FAVORED. 

The introduction of cattle-keeping, music, and smithery is 
ascribed to the descendants of Cain, on whom the curse had 
been pronounced ! 

LONGEVITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES. 

The great longevity of ancient times is common to the tra- 
ditions of all nations. As soon as we come down to historical 
times we see no more of these great ages. 

SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN. 

* The sons of God saw the daughters of men." This is bor- 
rowed from foreign or heathen sources. See Book of Enoch — 
an acknowledged forgery. 

ANCIENT GIANTS. 
"There were giants in the earth in those days." The belief in 
races of giants was universal among the ancients, but that the 
stature of the human race was really the same generally in those 
days as now, is shown by the remains discovered in ancient tombs 
and pyramids. 

STORY OF THE DELTJGE. 
In the story of the deluge the ark is made to rest on the 
highest summit of Ararat, and remain there seventy-three or 






ON THE PENTATEUCH. 27 

seventy-four days after the waters bad retired from the earth. 
At this elevation of 17,001) feet— 1,000 feet higher than Mont 
Blanc, and 3,000 feet above the region of perpetual snow— all the 
inhabitants of the ark must have frozen to death. Many other 
difficulties are presented and discussed, and in conclusion Colenso 
says that geology absolutely disproves the story. 

WAS IT A PARTIAL DELUGE? 

1. The difficulty of worms and snails crawling into the ark 
from some large terrestrial basin in western Asia, is just as great as 
from distant parts of the earth. One small brook would have been 
a barrier to further progress. Nor could Noah have provided for 
the wild carnivorous animals — the lion, leopard, eagle, vulture, 
etc. And what need to crowd the ark with birds which could 
easily have escaped beyond the boundaries of the inundation ? 

2. The language of the Bible is too sweeping. God says, 
"Every living substance that I have made will' I destroy from 
off the face of the earth." (G. vii. 4.) 

3. One volcanic region, forty miles by twenty, in the provinces 
of Auvergne and Languedoc, in France, contains deposits of sco- 
ria and lava extending over many miles, and in some places from 
fifty to one hundred feet deep, which must have taken many 
thousands of years to accumulate, and which have certainly not 
been submerged during at least eighteen thousand years past. 

4. In all the diluvian deposits no trace of human remains has 
ever been found. 

CHALDEAN STOUT OF THE DELUGE. 

Many heathen nations have traditions concerning a universal 
deluge. There is a Chaldean story of Xisthurus building an im- 
mense ship, 3,000 by 1/200 feet, loading it with provisions, enter- 
ing it with his family and all species of quadrupeds, birds, and 
reptiles, and sailing toward Armenia. When the rain ceased ho 
sent out birds to ascertain the condition of the earth. Twice 
they returned — the second time with mud on their feet. The 
third time they returned no more. By this time the ship had 
grounded on the side of an Armenian mountain, whereupon Xis- 
thurus and his family left it, erected an altar, and offered sacri- 
fices to the gods. Pieces of bitumen and timber, ostensibly taken 
from the ship, a were in later times chiefly used as amulets. 



£8 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

GENERATIONS OF NOAH. 

In G. x. tho generations of Noah are enumerated. The nations 
of Eastern Asia are not enumerated at all, though the writer 
seems to have had some vague notion of the existence of distant 
families (v. 30). 

IDENTITY OF LANGUAGE OF THE HEBREWS AND CANAANITES. 

The fact that the patriarchs and Hebrews could converse with 
the surrounding nations shows that their language was common, 
and tho indications are that the vernacular language of the 
Canaanites was substantially the same as that of the Hebrews. 
The language was radically the same from the earliest times. 

THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, WHENCE DERIVED. 

"Whence was the Hebrew language derived? The fact that 
the Pentateuch was written in pure Hebrew appears to be strong 
if not positive proof of its having been written at a much later 
period of their national history than the exodus, or at a time 
when the language of Canaan had become, after several genera- 
tions, the common tongue of tho invading Hebrews, as well as of 
the heathen tribes which they drove out, and which they were 
unwilling to acknowledge as brethren. We never read of any in- 
terpreter between the Hebrews and the Philistines. 

THE DISPERSION OF TONGUES. 

The story of the dispersion of tongues is connected by tha 
Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of # Belus, of 
which probably some wonderful reports had reached him, in 
whatever age he may have lived. The derivation of the name 
Babel from the Hebrew word meaning confound, which seems to 
be the connecting point between the story and the tower of 
Babel, is altogether incorrect, the literal meaning of the word 
being house, or court, or gate of Bel. 

REMARKABLE INCREASE IN FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. 

In Abraham's time, not four hundred years after the deluge, 
the descendants of Noah's three sons, none of whom had a child 
before the deluge, had so multiplied that four kingdoms are men- 
tioned as engaging in war against five other kingdoms (G. xv. 
1> 2). Besides these there are a multitude of other nations named 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 29 

in the same chapter, some of which had attained: a high state of 
civilization. 

COMPLETE CHANGE OF PHYSICAL CHARACTER. 

Moreover, in this short interval we find the most marked dif- 
ferences of physiognomy stamped on the different races, as shown 
on the ancient monuments of Egypt. There was a complete 
change of form, color, and general physical character, which 
Beem not to have been modified during the four thousand years 
since. 

noah's undutiful progeny. 

Noah, and all the rest of Abraham's ancestors after Noah, 
were still living, as appears from the following record: 



Noah 


. 


, 


. 


died 350 years after the flood 


Shem . 








ii 


502 


cl 


II 


Arphaxad, born 


2 


years after, 


died 404 


II 


II 


Salah, 


ii 


37 


ii 


ii 


470 


If 


II 


Eber, 


i< 


67 


ii 


ii 


351 


ft 


II 


Peleg, 


ii 


101 


ii 


ii 


340 


If 


II 


Rou, 


ii 


131 


ii 


k 


370 


II 


II 


Serug, 


it 


163 


it 


K 


393 


If 


II 


Nahor, 


u 


193 


it 


ii 


341 


II 


If 


Terah, 


a 


222 


ii 


ii 


427 


II 


it 


Abraham, 


ii 


292 


ii 


ii 


467 


(1 


ii 


Isaac, 


ii 


392 


ii 


ii 


572 


II 


it 


Jacob, 


ii 


452 


ii 


ii 


599 


II 


II 



And yet we do not find the slightest intimation that Abraham, 
Isaac, or Jacob paid any kind of reverence or attention to their 
illustrious ancestors. 

ABRAHAM'S INCREDULITY ABOUT HAYING A SON. ' 

Abraham laughed when told that a son should be born to him 
that was a hundred years old ; and yet there were actually living 
those ancestors of his from one hundred and seventy to five hun- 
dred and eighty year3 old at the time. Shem was one hundred 
years old two years after the deluge, when he begat Arphaxad, 
and he lived thereafter five hundred years, and begat sons and 
daughters. 



30 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

SILENCE OF THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ABOUT EDEN, 
THE FALL, AND THE DELUGE. 

The fact that nowhere in the other books of the Old Testa- 
ment is found any reference to the story in Genesis of the crea- 
tion, or the fall of man, or the deluge, except in Isaiah liv. 9 
(where the waters of Noah are mentioned), and Ezek. xiv. 14-20 
(where the name of Noah is mentioned"), is easy of explanation if 
the writer of these stories lived in the latter part of David's reign. 

THE BOOK OF ENOCH. 

In an appendix to vol. IV. the book of Enoch is examined. 
The Bishop says there is no doubt that the book is a fiction. Ac- 
cording to Archbishop Laurence, it was composed within about 
fifty years immediately preceding the birth of Christ. From it 
most of the language of the New Testament, in which the judg- 
ment of the last day is described, appears to have been directly de- 
rived. It is full of such expressions and sentences as these : " Day 
of judgment." " Judgment which shall last forever." "Lowest 
depths of fire in torment." "Ancient of Days upon the throne of 
his glory." " The book of the living was opened in his presence " 
" Valley burning with fire." "Fetters of iron without weight." 
" Furnace of burning fire." " The word of his wrath shall de- 
stroy all the sinners and all the ungodly, who shall perish at hi9 
presence." "Trouble shall seize upon them when they shnll be- 
hold this son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory/' 
" They shall fix their hopes on this son of man, shall pray to him 
and petition for mercy. Then shall the Lord of spirits hasten to 
expel them from his presence. Their faces shall be full of confu- 
sion, and their faces shall darkness cover. The angels shall take 
them to punishment that vengeance maybe inflicted on those 
who have opposed his children and his elect. . . . But the saints 
and the elect shall be safe in that day. . . . The Lord of spirits 
shall remain over them, and with his son of man shall they dwell, 
eat, lie down, and rise up forever and ever." 



VOL. V. 



BOOK OF JOSHUA. 

Vol. Y. opens with an examination of the book of Joshua 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 51 

after which the Bishop endeavors to separate the different por- 
tions of the different writers of the Pentateuch and the book of 
Joshua, and to fix their exact age. The larger portion of the book 
of Joshua, he believes, is due to the Deuteronomist, who must 
consequently have lived at all events after the days of Moses, 
since the death and burial of Moses are recorded in D. xxxiv. 
The argument proceeds as follows : 

THE DEUTERONOMIST. 

Numerous expressions common to Deuteronomy and Joshua 
occur nowhere else in the Pentateuch. These Deuteronomistio 
formulas do not occur throughout the whole of the book of Joshua, 
but only in certain portions of it ; in the remaining parts of the 
book, in which we find none of these formulas, we meet again 
with the peculiar phrases of the old writers of the Pentateuch 
which are never used by the Deuteronomist. The original lan- 
guage has been retouched and blended with that of the Deuter- 
onomist. The same also is true of the other four books ; there 
is plain evidence that the Deuteronomist has revised and retouched 
the manuscript before he added to it the sum and substance of the 
law of the book of Deuteronomy. More than half of the book of 
Joshua, especially of the historical and hortatory matter, consists 
of interpolations by the Deuteronomist. 

RESEARCHES OF HUPFIELD AND BOEHMER. 
The author gives a summary of the researches of Hupfield 
and Boehmer, exhibiting the Elohistic passages in Genesis, and 
showing great unanimity as the result of three independent re- 
searches. They all agree substantially, except in regard to four 
genealogical sections. 

ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC PECULIARITIES. 
There are more than one hundred different formulas or expres- 
sions, each of which occurs on an average more than ten times in 
Genesis, but only in those portions of it which remain when the 
Elohistic parts are removed. Some of them occur three times in 
one verse. On the other hand, the Elohistic portions in their 
turn exhibit their own phraseology, which is never repeated in 
the Jehovistic parts. Thus, only the Jehovistic portions contain 
such expressions as " lift up the eyes and see ;" " lift up the voice 
and weep • " " fall on the neck and weep ; " " find favor in the eyes 



32 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

of;" "see the face of; * " run to meet," etc. ; and such words as 
" sin," " swear," " steal," « smite," " slay," " fear," " hate," " com- 
fort," "embrace," "kiss," and even "love." 

SIMPLICITY OF THE ELOHIST. 
The Elohist appears to have had more correct views of the 
nature of the Divine Being and of his paternal relations to man- 
kind, and less gloomy views of mans nature and the prospects of 
the human race. According to him, " God saw everything that 
he had made, and behold it was very good." But the Jehovist 
speaks of the earth as corrupt and filled with violence. The lat- 
ter has a deep sense of sin and its consequences. The former 
knows nothing about the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, the 
wily serpent, or the fall of man; it is only the Jehovist who mul- 
tiplies curses upon the earth and pains of child-birth as the bitter 
consequences of our first parents' sin. The Jehovist gives all the 
darkest parts of the histories of indvidual life, such as the drunk- 
enness of Noah, the presumption of the Babel builders, the great 
selfishness of Lot, the uncleanness of Sodom, the wickedness of 
Onan, etc. All those stories of impurity which make so many of 
the passages of Genesis totally unfit to be read in public or in the 
family are due to the Jehovist. The original Elohutic writer 
presents the character of the three patriarchs substantially with- 
out a flaw. It is the Jehovist who lowers them. 

INTERPOLATIONS IN THE JEHOVISTIC NARRATIVE. 
"We have seen that there are interpolations in the original 
Elohistic narrative. We also find similar interpolations in differ- 
ent portions of the non-Elohistic matter itself. The non-Elohis- 
tic matter consists of the contributions of three or four different 
writers. For instance, chapter xiv. has no relation with any other 
part of Genesis. It brings Abraham before us in the character of 
a warlike Sheik, with 318 trained servants. But in the subse- 
quent account of his going to Gerar (chap, xx.), where Abimelech 
takes his wife from him, Abraham is afraid of his life, and prac- 
tises deceit, showing plainly that he could have had no such im- 
mense band of trained servants with him. He had routed tho 
combined forces of Eastern kings, and needed not therefore, to 
have feared the power of the petty Prince of Gerar. This 
chapter contains four times the expression, " God most high," 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 33 

which occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch, and only three 
times besides in the Bible — namely, in the Psalms. 

THE DEUTERONOMIST AN EDITOR. 

The later writer or Deuteronomist was not the compiler, but 
the editor of the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, which he inter- 
polated throughout and enlarged, especially by the addition of 
the book of Deuteronomy. The interpolated passages for the 
most part seem to have been inserted for the purpose of quicken- 
ing the history with a deeper spiritual meaning and stirring more 
effectually the reader's heart with words of religious life and 
earnestness. To this editor Colenso ascribes sixty-three verses 
entire of Genesis, and many more fragmentary notes. 

FIRST AND SECOND ELOHIST. 

About three-fourths of Genesis remain after removing the 
parts due to the second Jehovist and Deuteronomist. This three- 
fourths is so homogeneous in style that it is almost impossible to 
distingush the difference in style between the Different sections 
of it except in one respect. There is a second Elohistic writer 
who uses decidedly Jehovistic formulas, though he has abstained 
from the use of the name Jehovah (Lord). But though it is diffi- 
cult to separate the parts due to these two writers, Colenso has 
endeavored to do it. According to the critics there are five wri- 
ters of the Pentateuch — namely, the Elohist, the Elohist number 
two, the Jehovist, the Jehovist number two, and the Deuterono- 
mist. But Colenso thinks Elohist number two is the same as the 
Jehovist, only at an earlier period of his life. In his earliest at- 
tempts at interpolation he was perhaps somewhat stiff in style, 
which stiffness he overcame in his later years. Therefore the two 
may be identical. 

HOW THE JEHOVIST REGARDED THE ELOHISTIC NARRATIVE. 
It lias been already shown in vol. II. that the first chapter of 
Genesis was written by the same hand which wrote Exodus 
v. 2-7, revealing the name of Jehovah to Moses. The Elohistic 
writer not having used that name until he used it in the above 
passage, intended to be understood that the name was unknown 
among men till then. Now if Moses himself really recorded that 
fact is it possible that other writers of his time would have dared 
to contradict it by interpolations ? It is incredible. The interna- 



34 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

lations must have been made at a later age by a writer who knew 
that the original record was not historically true, and therefore 
ventured to interpolate the name Jehovah. He must have known 
that the original narrative was a work of the imagination, and 
therefore that it was not necessary to adhere to the older state- 
ment. 

AGE OF THE ELOHIST. 

1. There is an air of primitive simplicity pervading the whole 
Elohistic story. The style is grave, prosaic, and unadorned. 
There is no instance of a story of indecency ; crimes of violence 
are mentioned, but none of an indecent character. 

2. According to the Elohist mankind first lived on vegetablo 
food, and were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood. 

3. In the Elohistic narrative there is no mention made of houses. 
The ark is the only exception, but the details of it — the dimensions, 
the door, the window, the roof, the stories — are given by the Je- 
hovistic writer. 

4. The Elohist makes no mention of sacrifices, priests, or tithes. 

5. In G. xlviii. 5, 13, 14, Ephraim is set before Manasseh, though 
the latter was the first born, and both are reckoned as tribes of Is- 
rael. "As Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine." Now Manasseh 
was the most prominent among the Northern tribes until shortly 
before the time of Samuel, through its hero, Gideon (Jud. vi. 15). 
Hence the composition of Genesis cannot be assigned at an earlier 
period than about fifty }'ears before Samuel, the time of Jephthah, 
nor later than the time of David, shortly after S:imuel. 

6. In S. xxxv. 11, God promises Jacob that "a nation and a 
company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of 
thy loins," No reference is made to his desccendants forming, as 
they did, two nations, Judah and Israel ; but a nation is spoken of 
There is no enmity whatever implied in the Elohistic narrative 
between Joseph and his brethren. The children of Israel are 
plainly united in one body. 

7. There is no enmity existing between Esau and Jacob — i. e. f 
Edom and Israel ; so that the narrative must have been written 
before the. feeling between them became bitter, as recorded in 2 
S. viii. 14. This brings the date to a time not later than Samuel. 

8. " These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before 
there reigned any king over the children of Israel" (G. xxxvi. 31) 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 35 

— meaning of course, all Israel, which restricts the time to that 
of Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings. But as the 
signs of a more primitive civilization in the narrative forbid our 
assigning it to the age of Solomon, or even the latter part of 
David's reign, we must refer it to the early part or the time of 
Samuel, when " all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to 
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his 
mattock /' and when " in the day of battle there was neither 
sword nor spear fouud in the hand of any of the people that were 
with Saul and Jonathan "(IS. xiii. 20, 23). 

9. The Elohist lays great stress on Hebron, in the land of 
Canaan, where the field of Machpelah lay, as the resting place of 
the bones of the Patriarchs. David, by Divine command, was di- 
rected (2 S. ii. 1) to make Hebron the centre of his power or seat 
of Government. He reigned in Hebron over Judah seven 
and a half years, and then in Jerusalem thirty-three years over 
Israel and Judah (2 S. v. 5). After this Hebron disappears from 
history altogether, except that Absalom begins his rebellion by 
asking leave to go and pay a vow unto the Lord in Hebron (2 S. 
xv. 7), and there sets up his kingdom (v. 10). It would seem highly 
improbable that all this importance should be ascribed to Hebron 
if the writer wrote after the first few years of David's reign, when 
he had captured the fortress of Zion and made Jerusalem his royal 
city (2 S. v. 6, 7). 

10. Samuel lived three years after the anointment of David, 
and must have been aware of his valiant acts ; and his hopes seem 
to have been centred in David after he had utterly despaired of 
Saul. He may have advised David to go to Hebron, and may have 
written the passages before us with a view to that event. Samuel, 
having most likely a band of young men under his training, had to 
provide instruction for them as a school of prophets. They had 
no Bible, no body of Divinity ; and what is more likely than that 
he should have done his best to prepare such a narrative ? 

AGE OF THE JEHOYIST. 

1. The style of the Jehovist seems to be freer and easier than 
that of the second Elohist, thereby indicating a later authorship. 

2. Extended geographical knowledge is exhibited, pointing to 
a later ago than Samuel (G. ii. 11-14 and x.), when the people had 



36 ABSTKACT OF COLENSO 

passed out of the mere agricultural condition in which they were 
living in the time of Samuel, and had begun to have freer inter- 
course with surrounding nations and more especially with the 
maritime people of Tyre and Sidon. 

3. Indications of advanced civilization and even luxury are 
found in the Jehovistic portions (G. ii. 11, 12). Instruments of 
music and working in brass and iron are spoken of (iv. 21, 22), 
whereas in Saul's time " there was no smith found throughout all 
the land of Israel" (1 S. xiii. 19). 

4. Considerable acquaintance with Egyptian affairs and cus- 
toms is exhibited (xxxix. 20, xliii. 32, xlvi. 34, xlvii. 26, 1. 3). 

5. Jacob is recorded as building himself a house (xxxiii. 17). 
The details of Noah's ark are similar to the directions for the 
tabernacle. There are indications of artistic skill of every kind 
which can scarcely have existed before the age of Solomon, and 
which in fact never was indigenous, but belonged to the Tyrian 
builders and other artisans engaged in the erection of the temple. 

6. The hatred of Esau by Jacob is spoken of. In 2 K. viii. 20- 
22, we read of Edom revolting from under the hand of Judah. 
The prophecy in G. xxv. 23, that " the elder shall serve the 
younger," seems to have had its fulfilment in the latter part of 
David's reign, when Edom was crushed and did remain a servant 
to his younger brother Israel during the remainder of David's 
reign. But Edom recovered its independence at the beginning of 
Solomon's reign. 

7. This would also explain another phenomenon in connection 
with this matter which we observe in the Jehovistic portion of 
Genesis — viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob, and the gen- 
erous conduct described in the narrative of chapter xxxviii. 

8. The result remains that the Jehovistic sections of G. xxvii. 
40, etc. referring to Esau, cannot have been written till after Da- 
vid's death, but were probably composed at the very beginning of 
Solomon's reign, when Edom had long been serving his brother 
and had just thrown off the yoke. 

9. The Jehovist lays almost as much stress on Beer- 
sheba as the Elohist does on Hebron. Both Abraham and Isaac 
dig a well at Beersheba and acquire the right of possession in 
connection with a solemn covenant made with the Philistine king; 
whereas, according to the Elohist, each of the three patriarchs 



ON THE PENTATEUCH. 37 

lived solely at Hebron — at least after Abraham's acquisition of 
property there. And the Jehovist also in various places takes 
account of their having lived there at some time in their lives. 

10. In the days of David and Solomon the Israelitish territory 
extended from Dan to Beersheba. The great stress laid on Beer- 
sheba therefore seems to point to the time of David and Solomon. 
The phrase "from Dan even to Baersheba" is first used in Jud. 
xx. 1, and in 1 S. iii. 20, narratives written, no doubt, in this age. 
It is afterwards repeated. 

AGES OF THE DIFFERENT WRITERS. 
The result of Colenso's researches is to fix the ages of the dif- 
ferent writers, with the names of distinguished cotemporary 
prophets, as follows : 

Elohist, . . 1100 — 1030 B. C, cotemporary prophet, Samuel 

2dElohist, ) ■ *,. ««*. ~ .- 

T , . . 'i 1030—1010 " " « Nathan. 

Jehovist, \ 

2d Jehovist, 1035 " " " Gad. 

Deuteronomist, 641 — 624 " " " Jeremiah. 

Samuel may have begun the Elohistic story, and left it unfin- 
ished in the hands of his disciples, Nathan and Gad, whom we 
may fairly suppose to have been thrown under his auspices. 

PHOENICIAN ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOYAH. 

The name Jehovah the author traces to the Phoenicians. They 
no doubt practiced substantially the same religion and spoke the 
same language as the Israelites. Most decisive proof is given of 
this*by the series of Phoenician inscriptions lately published by 
the authorities of the British Museum. The great Phoenician 
Deity was the Sun, the male principle, while the Moon was re- 
garded as the symbol of the co-operating recipient powers of na- 
ture, the female principle. The Sun was worshipped under a 
variety of names, among others that of Baal (Lord) and Adonis 
(my Lord). But there was one name more august and mysterious, 
employed chiefly at the great feast of the harvest, and expressed 
both by Christian and heathen writers by the very same Greek 
letters, by which they express also the mysterious Hebrew name. 
Thus there must have been a very close resemblance between the 
two names, and accordingly we find Phoenician names compound- 



38 ABSTRACT OF COLENSO 

ed with Jah exactly as Hebrew. It is preposterous to suppose 
that the Phoenicians derived their names from the Hebrews. 

It is not necessary to suppose that the Elohist invented the 
name of Jehovah for his people. Samuel probably finding the 
tribes, the northern especially, already in possession of the name, 
adopted it as the name of the God of Israel. Afterwards the 
Deuteronomist breathed new life into the dead letter of the law. 
Meanwhile the people generally practised idolatry, even in the 
reign of David and Solomon. Jehosophat, Asa, Ahaziah, and 
Amaziah worshipped Jehovah (JHVH) on the high places, who 
was the Baal of Israel. There is no censure of the kings for al- 
lowing this idolatry by the writer of the books of Samuel and 
Kings. Yet all this while the great prophets of Israel were striv- 
ing with their stolid and perverse countrymen, to raise their 
minds to higher views of the Divine nature, and nobler concep- 
tions of the meaning of that name they were daily profaning. 

CORRUPT WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH. 

The worship of Jehovah being introduced among the Hebrews 
was long continued among them, as regards the great mass of the 
people, in the same low form in which it existed among the Ca- 
naan ite tribes, and was only gradually purified from its grosser 
pollutions by the long continued efforts of those great prophets 
whom God raised up for the purpose from time to time in differ- 
ent ages, aided no doubt in this work by the powerful national 
calamities which befell them, and probably also in some measure by 
their coming in contact during the time of their captivity with 
those divine truths which were taught in the Zroasterian religion. 
In fact, the state of Israel may be compared with that which, in 
the view of many ardent Protestants, exists even now in Catholic 
communities. The people in such cases worship the same God as 
the Protestants; they call themselves Christians, servants of the 
same Lord, yet there is much in their religion which Protestant 
travelers regard as profound idolatry, and denounce as gross 
abominations. 



THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 



By w. h. b. 



* Very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of the nation 
and country of the Jews, and their importance in history. Most maps 
of ancient Palestine assign far too much territory to that nation. They 
make the greatest length of the country from 160 to 175 miles, and its 
greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of from 10,000 to 
12,000 square miles— a little larger than the State of Vermont. They 
not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 1G0 miles, hut a 
considerable mountain tract on the north, above Dan, and a portion of 
the desert on the south, below Beersheba, besides running the eastern 
boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every 
direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and southern 
towns, the distance on Mitchell's map is 165 miles, and on Colton's, 150; 
but on a map accompanying ;i Biblical Researches in Palestine," by 
Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and elaborate, 
and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the distance is only 
128 miles. 

Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from 
the choicest portion of the country — the Mediterranean coast— nor even 
from most parts of the interior. (Judges i. 16-81 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) The 
Phenicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern portion 
of the coast, and the Philistines the southern ; between these the Jebu- 
sites, or some other people, held control, so that the Israelites were 
excluded from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map of their 
country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at 
least 10 mile3 wide by 160 long, or 1,600 square miles. A further reduc- 
tion must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and Lake 
of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9,000 square miles by Colton's map. 
But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles ; which 
is 47 miles too great ; for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only 
from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 miles apart. 
We must therefore make a farther reduction of an area about 47 by 60 
miles, or 2.800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east, 
at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce 
the area of Colton's map, from 11,000 square miles, to 5,600— a little 
less than the State of Connecticut. 

But now if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert, 
and also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites, 
we further reduce their habitable territory about cn«-half. Tb« land of 



40 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 

Canaan being nearly all mountainous, and bounded on the south and east 
by a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a 
great part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the Is- 
raelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the Jordan 
which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper land of 
promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly popu- 
lated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a 
precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So then it is not 
probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time, 
a territory of more than 8,000 square miles, or not much if any larger 
than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted 
that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of the 
Jews ever did. 

The promise* to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18, is " from the river of Egypt 
to the river Euphrates." But the Jewish possessions never reached the 
Nile by 200 miles. In Ex. xxxiii. 81, the promise is renewed, but the 
river of Egypt is not named. The boundaries are "from the Red Sea 
to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to 
the river." By "the river " was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and 
assuming that by " the desert " was meant the eastern boundary (though 
Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert, which 
reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles 
long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100.000 
square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and 
nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So then the promise was never ful- 
filled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of 
their land of promise, and whether they occupied 8,000 or 12,000 square 
miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed 
that their country was a very small one. 

"What wa3 the physical character of the land of Canaan 1 It is de- 
scribed in the Pentateuch as a" land flowing with milk and honey." 
Such it may have seemed to the Israelites after wandering forty years 
through the frightful desert of Sinai and Edom. where but for tho 
miraculous supply of food and water, every soul of them would have per- 
■ ished. But what was there in Canaan to warrant so extravagant an enco- 
mium 1 Surely there are no signs there now of its ever having been even 
a fertile country. Modern travelers all agree that it is very barren and 
desolate. How could it bo otherwise 7 It is a country of rocks and 
mountains, and is bounded on two sides by a vast d?sert. 

Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly 
toilsome and melancholy — neither houses nor cultivation, mountains 
without a shrub, immense rocks split by time, pinnacles tinged with colors 
like those of an extinct volcano. " From the summit of these hills, as 
far as the eye can reach, we see only black chains, conical or broken peaks, 
a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and those 



THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 41 

ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, with- 
out a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land, 
with waves of stone." (Vol. II., p. 146.) 

But lest it may be thought that these dismal features are due to modern 
degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian father, St. 
Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jeru- 
salem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus : — 

" I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of 
Egypt took possession of this country (which to us, by the passion and 
resurrection of our Saviour has become truly the land of promise), to 
show us what this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended 
only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geo-, 
graphical miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon, 

except what they acquired by alliance, after conquest I am ashamed 

to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby 
give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geograph- 
ical miles) from Joppa to our littlo town of Bethlehem, beyond which, 
all is a frightful desert." (Vol. II., p. 605.) 

Elsewhere he describes the country as the refuse and rubbish of nature, i 
He says that from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones, 
and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink. 

In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch, of the U. S. Navy, was sent to explore' 
the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great diffi- 
culty crossed the country from Acre to the lake of Tiberias, with trucks 
drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule 
paths. Frequent detours had to be made, and they were compelled ac- 
tually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity 
could not be overcome, until all hands turned out and hauled the boats 
and baggage down the steep places ; and many times it seemed as if, like 
the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea. 
Over three days were required to make the journey, which, in a straight 
line would be only 27 miles. For the first few miles they passed over a 
pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phenician country, which 
the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and 
rocky, with not a tree visible, nor a house outside the little walled vil- 
lages, (pp. 135 to 152.) 

Arriving at the ancient sea of Galilee, they purchased the only boat 
owned there (Letter to the Secretary of State). On this insignificant body 
of water, 12 miles long by 7 wide, all the commerce of the Jews was 
carried on, except in the reign of Solomon, when they had the use of 
a port on the Red Sea. From thence, the party proceeded down the 
Jordan ; some in boats, the rest by land. They had to clear out old 
channels, make new ones, and sometimes, trusting in Providence, they 
plunged with headlong velocity down appalling descents. On the third 
morning the frame boat was smashed and abandoned. The metallic boats 
which they had provided for this perilous voyage were the only kind that 



42 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 

would survive. They plunged down twenty-seven threatening rapids, 
besides many smaller ones in their passage from the lake to the Dead 
Sea, a distance of 200 miles by the crooked Jordan, but only 56 in a 
straight lino. The fall in the whole distance is G54 feet. The width of 
the river, Lieut. Lynch says, was 75 feet ; but as this was at the time of 
the flood, it must have been much less at low water. Other travelers 
say it is only 40 feet wide. Even as it was, their boat, drawing only eight 
inches of water, grounded in mid-channel, showing how very shallow 
the river must have been in summer. A bridge spanning the stream with 
a single pointed Saracenic arch is described by Lieut. Lynch, and a draw- 
ing of it is given by the Rev. Mr. Tristram in his " Land of Israel " (Lon- 
don, 18G5) Through this single arch the waters have rushed for centu- 
ries, and still the bridge endures. Such is the famous Jordan — a narrow, 
shallow, crooked, impetuous mountain stream. 

In a book entitled " The Holy Land, Syria," etc., by David Roberts, 
R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described : — 

" A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest 
time almost a desert But in the northern part, the great number of rivu- 
lets which descend from the mountains on both sides, produce in many 
places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, 
where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuber- 
ant fertility ; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan, and have no 
effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rug- 
ged and desolate ; the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an eleva- 
tion of 1.000 or 1,200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in ranges 
of from '2,000 to 2,500 feet.' 5 

From the mouth of the Jordan to Jerusalem, the elevation is 3,927 feet. 
The distanco in a straight line on Robinson's map is 16 miles. From tho 
nearest point on the Dead Sea it is 12 1-2 miles. An air-line railroad, 
therefore, from the mouth of the river to Jerusalem would require an 
average grade of 245 feet to the mile; and from tho nearest point on the 
Dead Sea, 314 feet to the mile. The length of the route would have to 
be more than doubled or trebled to make a railroad practicable. From 
Jerusalem to Yafa, the nearest practicable point on the Mediterranean, 
is 33 miles in a direct line. As Jerusalem is 2,G10 fest higher than tho 
sea level, tho average grade of an air-line railroad between the two places 
would be about 80 feet per mile. Should the time ever come when a 
railroad would be require 1 from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan, 
via Jerusalem, the question might arise, which would be the most prac- 
ticable — the heavy grades required, or a tunnel from ten to twenty miles 
long, and from one to two thousand feet below the site of the holy city. 

What was the size of ancient Jerusalem ? We know pretty nearly 
what it is now, and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quar- 
ters of a mile long, by a half a mile wide, and its population is not more 
than 11,500 {Biblical Researches, Vol. I., p. 421), a large proportion of 
whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr. 



THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 43 

Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978 
feet in circumference, or nearly two and a half miles. (Vol. I., p. 268.) 

In a book entitled " An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusa- 
lem," by James Fergusson (London, 1S47), a diagram is given of the 
walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the 
greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6C00 feet, or a little 
more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile ; 
while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that 
size. The author gives the area of the different walled inclosures as 
follows (p. 52) : — 

Area of the old citv, 513.000 yards. 

That of the city of David, .... 243,000 



Partial Total, 756,000 

That inclosed by the wall of Agrippa, , - - 1,456,000 



Grand total, 2,212,000 

With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the 
probable population o; the ancient city, as follows : — 

" If we allow the inhabitants of the first named cities fifty yards to 
each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the 
rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent 
population of 23,000 souls. If on the other hand we allow only thirty- 
three yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new 
was as densely populated as London ; or allowing one hundred yards to 
each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole — which I do not 
think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a 
permanent population." 

In another part of the book (p. 47) he says : — 

"If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusa- 
lem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three 
millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus, 1,100,000 perished by 
famine and the sword; 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by 
Titus to go free." 

In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the 
fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000 : and that 
Josephus himself enumerates the fighting men of the city at 23,400, 
which would give a population something under 100,000. Bat even this 
he believes to be an exaggeration. For says he : — 

" In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews 

could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many Titus inclosed 

the city with a line four and one half miles in extent, which, with his 
email army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews 
could easily have broken through it ; but they never seem to have had 
numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it." 

The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the begin- 
ning of the seige about 10,000 men, and that the city might have con- 
tained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in 



44 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 

a space which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000 
souls. Bat the wall of Agrippa was built, as this same author states, 
twelve or thirteen years after the crucifixion ; hence prior to that time 
the area of Jerusalem was only 756,000 yards, and it was capable of con- 
taining only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain 
more than 15,000. 

Now Jerusalem was the chief city of the Jews, and the greatest extent 
of territory occupied by that nation does not now contain more than 
200,OCO inhabitants, if as many. Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of 
the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at 
all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like 
even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record 1 In 
1 Chr. xxi. 5, 6, we read that the number of " men that drew the sword " 
of Israel and Judah, amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of 
Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Samuel xxlv. 9, the number given at the same 
census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. Assuming the larger 
number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of 
Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000 
fighting men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting man to four 
inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt 
a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over 
10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered 153,600 
working men only two years later (2 Chr. ii. 17), and the total alien 
population, therefore, must have been about 500,000, which, added to the 
census, would make the total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or 
more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mountainous, barren coun- 
try, no larger than Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures, 
without the mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did, or could sub- 
sist even two millions of people 1 Much less can it be believed that it 
subsisted " seven nations greater and mightier than the Israelitish nation 
itself" (Daut. vii. 1), i. e., not less than 14,000,000. 

That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Assuming 
as true, the account of their remarkable battle with the Midianites prior 
to their entrance into Canaan, the wholesale slaughter of men, women 
and children was an act peculiar only to a savage people. Who but a 
barbarian chief could have commanded the murder in cold blood by 
the returning victors, of all their captive women and children, save 
32,000 virgins whom they were to keep alive for themselves ! 

Again, on taking the town of Jericho, they massacred all its inhabi- 
tants, saving only the harlot Rahab, who by falsehood and treachery had 
- betrayed her own people. 

Sometime afterwards a civil war broke out among the Israelites them- 
selves, in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost exterminated, leaving 
only 600 males ; whereupon the people, unwilling that one of their tribes 
should be annihilated, fell upon and sacked a whole city of another of 



8 years. 


(Judges, 


iii. 


8.) 


18 " 


( " 


iii. 


14.) 


20 " 


( " 


iv. 


S.) 


7 « 


( H 


vi. 


1) 


18 " 


( " 


X. 


8.) 


40 " 


( " 


xiii. 


1-) 



THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 45 

their tribes, tilling all its inhabitants except the virgins whom they gave 
for wives to the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjamites 
lost in that battle 26,100 men, and their adversaries 40,030. (Judges xx. 
15, 21, 25, 31.) The latter, however, not content with slaughtering all 
the Benjamites but 600, proceeded to their towns and slew every man, 
woman and child of the tribe. These must have numbered at least 
80,000 ; so that the whole number killed in the three days of fraticidal 
warfare was not less than 146,000. k 

Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the* 
Israelites a nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after 
their entry into Canaan, they were six times reduced to bondage in their 
own land of promise. During a period of 281 years, they were in slavery 
111 years, viz : — 

Under the King of Mesopotamia, 

Under the King of Moab, 

Under the King of Canaan, 
[ Under the Midianites, 

In Gilead, - 

Under the Philistines, 

That the Jews were far behind their surrounding neighbors in civili- 
sation is shown by the fact that in the first battle they fought under their 
first king, Saul, they had in the whole army "neither sword nor spear 
in the hand of any of the people," except Saul and Jonathan. (1 Samuel 
xiii. 22.) Nor was any "smith found throughout all the land of Israel" 
(.v 19), but " all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen 
every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock." (v. 
20.) This was 404 years after the exodus, and only 75 years prior to the 
building of Solomon's temple. Their weapons of war were those of the 
rudest savage. David used a sling to kill Goliath, showing that he had 
net yet learned the use of more civilized weapons ; not even the bow, 
which he afterwards caused to be taught to his people. (2 Samuel i. 18.) 

As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, when David resolved 
to build a house for himself, he had no native artisans, but had to send to 
Hiram, King of Tyre, for masons and carpenters. (2 Samuel v. 11.) ; 
Even the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre. It would seem that 
even in those days, as now, the mountains of Canaan were destitute of 
trees — a sure sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be 
carried over land. Wheel-carriages were unknown to the Israelites, ex- 
cept in the form of chariots of iron used by their enemies, which pre- 
vented Judah, even with the help of the Lord, from driving out the 
inhabitants of the valleys. (Judges i. 19.) David captured 1,000 chariots 
in about the 16th year of his reign, of which he preserved only 100, 
disabling all the horses. (1 Chr. xviii. 3.) Prior to this event neither 
chariots nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor was much use 
made of them by the subsequent kings. Oxen and asses were their 



46 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 

beasts of burden ; camels were rare even long after Solomon's reign. 
How then was the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, unless 
it was carried on the backs of oxen or asses, or dragged along tho 
ground 1 

The national wealth seems to have increased prodigiously in David's 
reign— chiefly from spoils— but the amount is manifestly greatly exag- 
gerated. Among his spoils was the crown of the King of Kabbah, the 
weight of which was a talent of gold (2 Samuel xii. 30) ; i. e., 93 3-4 
pounds avoirdupois — a pretty heavy burden for a royal head. At the 
beginning of his reign, David had not even iron with which to forge 
weapons of war or implements of agriculture, and yet after forty years 
it is said that he left to his son Solomon, for the temple, 3 000 talents 
of gold and 7,000 of silver. (1 Chr. xxix. 4.) Now a talent of gold, 
according to the "table of weights and money" in the Bible, pub- 
lished by the American Bible Society, is equal to 5,464*. 5s. 8 l-2d. t 
or $26,447 ; and a talent of silver is equal to 34U 10s. 4 1-2&, or 
$1,653. The amount of gold and silver, therefore, which David con- 
tributed was equal to $90,912,000. But this is not all. The chiefs, 
princes, captains, and rulers over the King's work gave 5,000 talents, and 
10,000 drachms of gold, and 10,000 talents of silver (v. 7), — equal to 
$153,845,000. So that the total sum of gold and silver contributed by 
David and his chiefs was $244,757,000, besides precious stones and an 
incredible quantity of brass and iron. Can it be believed that David and 
his men acquired such riches that they were able to make these enormous 
contributions 1 

In the reign of Solomon gold and silver continued to pour in so that 
he was able to buy a fleet of ships in the Red Sea, of Hiram, King of 
Tyre, and these ships brought him from Ophir 450 talents of gold, as wo 
read in 2 Chr. viii. 18— equal to about $12,000,000— though in 1 Kings ix. 
28, the amount given is 420 talents, or about $800,000 less. Again, we 
read in 1 Kings x. 14, that the weight of gold that came to him in one 
year was 666 talents — equal to about $18,000,000. And yet this same 
monarch, who " exceeded all the Kings of the earth for riches " (v. 23), 
had neither wood, nor skilled workmen to build his paiace and temple, 
but bought the wood and hired the artisans of tho King of Tyre. (2 Chr. 
ii. 3-10 ; 1 Kings v 6-12.) The laborers employed in the Temple were all 
tho strangers in the land, numbering 153,000, of whom 3,600 were made 
overseers. (2 Chr. ii. 17, 18.) Over these were set 550 Jewish overseers 
according to 1 Kings ix. S3, or 250 according to 2 Chr. viii. 10. With 
this great number of workmen, Solomon was seven years in building this 
celebrated Temple, which was only 110 feet long, 36 wide, and 55 high. 
(1 Kings vi. 2.) How many a modern church edifice exceeds in sizo 
Solomon's great Temple ! But there wore additions to the house. First, 
there was a porch at one end 36 feet by 18 (v. 3). This porch is said, in 
2 Chr. ill. 4, to have been 220 feet high, or four times tho height of tho 



THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 47 

house ! But as nothing is said about the hight of it in Kings, we may 
assume that the chronicler made a mistake in his figures in this case, as 
he has so frequently done in others. Then there were added to the walls 
of the house outside chambers, nine feet high, and from nine to thirteen 
feet broad, in three tiers, making a hight of 27 feet. But even with 
these additions, the temple was not remarkable for size, and the story 
that 150,000 laborers were employed seven years in its construction, is 
incredible. 

So, too, as regards the amount of the precious metals said to have been 
used in the building of the Temple, it is fabulous. The quantity of gold 
alone which David and his chiefs are said to have given, would weigh 
750,000 pounds avoirdupois, or 375 tons — enough of itself to cover the 
building outside and in, with a plate of gold weighing ten pounds to the 
square foot, and then leave over 100 tons for the inner and outer cham- 
bers, and all the paraphernalia — quite enough for the purpose, if economi- 
cally used, without touching the 796 tons of silver. 

On the death of Solomon a division took place among the tribes, the 
kingdom was torn asunder and divided into two small provinces, called 
Judah and Israel ; two and a half tribes composing the former, and nine 
and a half the latter. A religious war broke out between the two king- 
doms, and while it was going on the kings of Assyria came down upon 
the nine and a half tribes and carried them away captive. The captives 
never returned, nor can any one to this day tell where they were dis- 
persed. The small remnant of the Jews soon after became a prey to 
conquerors and were carried captive to Babylon. The captivity of the 
two and a half tribes took place 58S years B. C, and was practically an 
end of the Jewish nation. They were slaves in Babylon and its vicinity, 
till 536 years B. C. (Ezra i. 1-6), a period of 52 (not 70) years, when they 
were released by Cyrus and allowed to return to Judea. But it appears 
that less than 50,000 returned. (Ezra ii. 64, 65.) These, no doubt, were 
of the poorer class, the wealthier remaining in Babylon, and contribut- 
ing alms for the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. 
The amount contributed, according to Ezra ii. 68, 69, was 61,000 drachms 
of gold, and 5000 pounds of silver— equal in the aggregate to about 
6110,000 ; but according to Nehemiah vii. 70, 72, it was 41,000 drachms of 
gold and 4,200 pounds of silver—equal to about $290,000. Whichever 
was the correct amount, it was not a 600th part of what David and his 
men contributed for the first temple.* 

About eighty years later, further contributions were made, amounting 

* These two chapters, Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii. are almost exactly alike, the 
whole of the former being repeated in the latter, with slight variations. Both give 
the names of the families that returned, and the number of each. They agree in 
making the wholf? number 42,360, besides 7,337 servants ; but on casting up the sep- 
arate numbers, the whole sum in Ezra is 29,818 ; and in Nehemiah 31,089. Again, 
on comparing the two chapters versa by verse, we find twenty-seven discrepancies in 
figures, and thirty in names. 



48 THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS. 

to nearly $4,000,000 (only a 60th part of what David and his men gave), 
and sent by Ezra with a guard of about 1.750 men from Babylon to Jeru- 
salem. (Ezraviii.) But the effort to re-establish the Jewish nation proved 
futile. Though they were permitted in some degree to establish their 
superstitious religious rites in their former country, they were ever af- 
terwards the subjects of other powers, until their final dispersion at the 
siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, A. D 70. For half a century after its 
destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in his- 
tory ; and even until the time of Constantine its history presents little 
more than a blank. (Vol. I., pp. 367, 871.) 

Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people, that the historical 
monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323 
years B. C, make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction. 
The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus, 
and Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention 
of the Jews whatever. Neither Homer, the cotemporary of Solomon, 
nor Aristotle, the correspondent of Alexander, makes any mention of 
them. The story of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, has 
been proved to be a fabrication. Alexander's historians say nothing 
about it. He did pass through the coast of Palestine, and the only re- 
sistance he encountered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persians. 
{WyttenbacWs Opuscula, Vol. II., pp. 416, 421.) 

Soon after the death of Alexander, the Jews first came into notice 
under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were collected at 
the new-built city of Alexandria. But they remained an obscure people, 
so much so that when Christ was crucified in the province of Judea under 
the Roman government, no record of the event seems to have been reg- 
istered in the archives of that great empire ; for if any had been, it 
would doubtless have been preserved, at least for 300 years, and pro- 
duced by the Emperor Constantine, the first royal pagan convert to Chris- 
tianity, in his oration before the council of Nicaea, A. D. 326, on the evi- 
dences of the Christian religion. 

Persecution has probably made the Jews in modern times more numer- 
ous than they ever were as an ancient nation. Little reliance can be 
placed upon their early history, which is entirely unsupported by cotem- 
porary records. The story of their origin is doubtless fabulous. It is 
more probable that they were at first a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs 
who got possession of the sterile portion of Palestine, and held it until 
it was pretty thoroughly ruined. At all events it is clear that their im- 
portance has been unduly magnified. 












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